Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has selected Sally Jewell, CEO of Recreational Equipment
Inc., to be secretary of the interior in his second-term cabinet.

Jewell’s background as an engineer and experience in the banking, energy and retail industries
give her the skills needed to run a department that oversees 500 million acres of public land,
Obama said as he introduced her at the White House.

“She is an expert on the energy and climate issues that are going to shape our future,” Obama
said yesterday. “She knows that there’s no contradiction between being good stewards of the land
and our economic progress.”

Obama has said that he plans to make reducing the risks of climate change a priority in his
second term.

If confirmed by the Senate, Jewell would succeed Ken Salazar, a former Democratic senator from
Colorado who sought to strengthen oil and gas regulations after BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill and
to expand solar- and wind-energy projects on federal land. The agency has about 70,000
employees.

Jewell heads a privately held company focused on the outdoors; its sales of clothing, camping
and recreational gear total almost $2 billion a year. Her 2011 compensation, including $754,307 in
base pay, was $2 million, down from $2.28 million a year earlier, according to a statement on the
company website. Cabinet secretaries are paid about $200,000 this year.

She joined REI as chief operating officer in 2000 after working at Washington Mutual’s
commercial banking group as president. From 1978 through 1981, she was an engineer for Mobil
Oil.

“Her experience as a petroleum engineer and business leader will bring a unique perspective to
an office that is key to our nation’s energy portfolio,” said Tim Wigley, president of the Western
Energy Alliance, which represents more than 400 companies. “We hope to see a better balance of
productive development on nonpark, nonwilderness public lands.”

The Interior Department’s next chief will oversee development of the first federal rules for
hydraulic fracturing on public lands. The drilling process, known as “fracking,” has unlocked
stores of oil and natural gas trapped in shale-rock formations, and industry representatives have
resisted the department’s push for greater oversight. Environmental groups say that fracking poses
risks for water and air pollution, and they want tighter regulation of the practice.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee’s public lands
subcommittee, said he has reservations about Jewell because REI has “intimately supported several
special-interest groups and subsequently helped to advance their radical political agendas.”Bishop
was referring to groups including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which has worked to block
oil and gas development in Utah, said Melissa Subbotin, his spokeswoman.